A Holding Pattern and the Struggle to Land

 

Now more than ever do you find yourself asking "How am I doing?" How many times have you said, "It's been a really weird year"?  It seems trivial to say the big challenges are about readjusting our daily lives. Over the past eight months, we've had to reconfigure how to shop and keep 6' apart, attend school, see the doctor, enjoy a dinner out....and just breathe!  So, just last week as I was painting on a most difficult piece and pondering my personal challenges, I decided that the phrase "Life imitates art" is relevant more than ever.  Are my struggles at the easel in effect, in sync with the world around us? Why yes they are.

Let me explain. On my easel sits a piece that is whooping my butt!  I would work for 4 hours on a particular area of the piece, resolving all the problems of the world upon my easel. Then.... the following day I'd return to my studio and scrape it all off!  After four embattled weeks of daily repeated efforts, I finally realized, and am embarrassed to share, that I was in a hovering pattern. I could compare it to the delicate Forrest Gump feather that indecisively floats along with the breeze. Perhaps the smoke-filled skies from the devastating fires, protests, hurricanes, and Covid are affecting my work in various ways?  Hmmm...

I will let you in on my little secret.  It is not unusual for me to experience environmental battles in my work, but never one so extended. Heartbreaking.  So, I was wondering if you sense holding patterns in your life too? How do you process a difficult struggle?  Well, for me my art acts as a grounding, therapeutic source.  Perhaps the phrase "Life imitates art" could be switched around for one instance to read "Art imitates life"?

Moving along...